


The Moonshine

by rosymamacita



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Space, Bellarke, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Minor Character Death, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, Space Pirates, Space Ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:58:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5825941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosymamacita/pseuds/rosymamacita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy Blake was the son of space grunts, and he’d managed just fine. He had his biomechanical ship, Moonshine. She looked a mess, but she travelled through the void like a dream, and he loved her. He also had his sister, Octavia, left in his care as a string bean kid when their mom died. And he had his crew, a misfit group of delinquents that was all the family he needed.</p><p>When Clarke Griffin hired his ship so she could disappear from the oppressive Arcadian Empire, the credits she brought gave him just what he needed to get his ship what she needed to survive, but Clarke Griffin made everything more complicated. She kept trying to take over, and everyone listened to her! Even his ship seemed to like her. Worst of all, he was afraid he was starting to like her, and he didn't need that at all. </p><p>Sorry, guys. I abandoned this fanfic, because I decided to turn it into an original novel. Sticking to the canon elements was keeping it from moving forward, so I had to change it. I already finished my first draft. I'll be getting to the second and looking for a publisher or considering self publishing next year probably.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>I SAID SPACE PIRATES!!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Space Grunts

**Author's Note:**

> As I started thinking about The 100 outer space AU, my speculation about space travel and how they survive without a planet took over and made it into something very different. There are elements of Star Wars and Firefly and Dark Matter and Ender's Game (book) and Cyteen and every other science fiction book or show I've ever seen or read. 
> 
> It's also set a couple hundred years later than The 100, because they'd already developed the technology to live in space, although not the technology to travel much beyond our solar system. There are no aliens. Just a bunch of post apocalyptic astronauts, floating around in space.

In the before times, Old Earth looked to space to expand it’s reach. The Old Earth empires sent their colony ships out to terraform lifeless moons, built domes on asteroids, set space stations spinning in far flung orbits, preparing to move humanity into the universe. They filled the solar system with mining settlements and factory stations, farm domes and scientific outposts, sending workers and grunts to build their new domains, eyes always on other star systems, waiting for technology to catch up to their vision.

But tensions on Earth escalated as power struggles and wars of ideology rippled across the planet. The Earth was destroyed, leaving as survivors only those station workers and space grunts, along with the giant arkships, last escapees from a toxic planet. It was the arkships that held the last hope of humanity. They carried comprehensive genetic data banks of Old Earth’s biologic riches, and the best and brightest minds— leaders, scientists, artist. They were tasked with re-establishing humanity’s place in the universe. 

For a hundred years After Earth, they had yet to discover a living, earth-like planet where humanity could make a new home. Instead, people struggled to exist on bare planetoid domes, hollowed out asteroids, and welded together space junk in the void of space. Humanity survived on rock and metal, just barely.

Bellamy Blake didn’t need any of that shit.

He was the son of space grunts, and he’d managed just fine. He had his ship, Moonshine. She looked a mess, but she travelled through the void like a dream, and he loved her. He also had his sister, Octavia, left in his care as a string bean kid when their mom died. And he had his crew, a misfit group of delinquents that was all the family he needed.

He’d grown up on 17 sec, a factory station orbiting Titan, every credit he earned going towards the dream of getting his mom and sister off the twisted hunk of metal. When his mom had died in a manufacturing ‘accident’, he’d thought his dream was dead, too, but then he was called to the docking station and his whole life changed. 

There was Moonshine, battered and dull, but, apparently, his inheritance. It was hard to feel grief for the loss of a father he’d never known, as the stiff Arcadian guard offered his condolences, especially when he suddenly owned a space ship. He introduced himself as Captain Kane, said Bellamy’s dad had done the Arcadian Empire a great service on the other side of the solar system, and then left. Captain Kane was gone on the nearest shuttle before Bellamy could even thank him.

The docking fees alone took up half his savings, but the minute he saw Moonshine, it was love. Everyone else looked at her, with her grayish biotech skin and weird appendages, and shook their heads in sympathy. From all reports, Bellamy’s dad had been a strange guy. He’d embraced the new biomechanical technology developed on the outer orbits, and rigged his simple freight ship with it. It looked more like some sort of sea creature from old vids than it did a ship. Once he’d gotten it functioning again, he had a hard time finding a crew that could get over what it looked like. Truth told, he was pretty sure the crew he finally found were all half criminals, and they were younger than they should be, but they were good at their jobs and they were a team.

Bellamy Blake had the stars. He had freedom. He had family. He didn’t need some Empire, especially not The Arcadian, which was dominant in this sector, telling him what shipments he could pick up and to whom he could sell. Nope.

The Arcadian Empire may have ruled on Earth and they might still lord over everyone from the comfort of their arkship, but hard space was a lot less forgiving than easy living blue skies. They had no idea what it was like to live out here on the edges of space. The Arcadian thought they were the salvation of humanity, with all their rules and plans and gene banks, but as far as Bellamy could tell, they were why humanity had nearly been eradicated in the first place. And they were certainly why his mom had died. 

Bellamy knew the secret routes around the embargoes and which palms to grease and which officials needed favors and which council members needed information more than they needed to suck up to the Arcadian guard ships. Arcadian guards only blew into a station once in a while. The void was a constant. The pirates were always a danger. The need to survive, to triumph, never went away. Bellamy didn’t care if The Arcadian controlled the technology that fueled space travel. Bellamy had his own secrets.

“Well that was a piece of cake,” Octavia said as she sauntered up to meet him on the way to the helm. 

“O,” Bellamy warned as she caught up to him.

Octavia rolled her eyes, but knocked on the lower metal wall of the ship three times, for luck. “You and your space superstitions.” 

The bio engineered lighting panels flickered with the knocking. They were always sensitive. Bellamy reached up and patted them softly, sending them good thoughts. Octavia rolled her eyes again. She didn’t share his belief that the tiny little silicon based life forms that lit the ship could sense anything, let alone his care. But the way he saw it, he cared for his ship, as much as he cared for Octavia or his crew, and that was why they were all still alive and ticking.

But Bellamy pretended she was rolling her eyes at something else, not his gentle feelings. He generally didn’t like to admit he had gentle feelings. “It’s just good sense, never gloat about a getaway before you’ve actually gotten away. Is the freight taken care of?”

“Yeah. Raven’s in the hold ordering the boys around.”

“I’m sure Murphy loves that.”

Octavia laughed. “You know he does, even though he pretends not to. Now Atom, he’d prefer I was the one bossing him around.”

“Octavia, I really don’t need to hear about that.” Octavia didn’t really care about skeeving him out. Sometimes he thought she went out of her way to do it. 

She laughed at him, and adjusted her holsters. “I’m a grown woman, big brother. Deal.”

She didn’t look like a grown woman to Bellamy. She was slight and and had a fresh faced beauty that made him grit his jaw with the need to protect her, but she was also the best sharp shooter in the quadrant and knew a million ways to kill a man, and some of them he’d be smiling when he went. 

His sister had grown up whether he wanted her to or not, and sometimes in ways he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. He always had the sinking feeling that going through puberty in the hard scrabble life of a (only sometimes legal) freighter crew was something that might’ve scarred the sweeter thing she was supposed to be, if she had gotten the chance to live on Earth, or in an arkship. 

But then he remembered that none of them ever got a say in what disasters they were going to have to survive. Earth blew up. And those arkships were just as much a stew of vice and injustice as the dirty colonies. At least he had done one thing right raising his baby sister. Octavia was a survivor. 

Even if she did pick an earnest kid like Atom to get wrapped up in. He wasn’t sure how that happened. He still thought Octavia would eat him alive, but it wasn’t his job to protect the kid. 

Bellamy stepped through the portal to the helm and settled into the captain’s seat. “Miller,” he greeted his pilot. Miller did not look up, just continued his takeoff protocol, eyes on the dash, serious as always.

“Everything stowed?” Miller asked, which was Miller code for ‘did we get the stash that we’re not supposed to talk about?’

“Even better, my friend,” Bellamy said as he checked the nav charts. “We got twice the credits and all we need to do is detour a couple of days to pick up some passengers on Dropship Station. And we were headed there anyway.”

Miller shot a look at him then. “Passengers?” he said doubtfully and turned away. He muttered to himself and all Bellamy caught was, “more trouble than they’re worth.”

“We’ve got the extra quarters. We’re not going to turn down all the credits because you don’t like people.” He glared at the charts instead of Miller, because yeah, Miller was right. Every time they took passengers recently, something went wrong. Bar fights that turned into riots, bounty hunters tailing them through the asteroid belt, sneaking thieves, and probably the worst, difficult romantic entanglements.

Miller’s dusky face remained stoic as his eyes scanned the sky. “Remember Roma?”

Bellamy shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and scowled at his friend. Roma had thought Bellamy would take her into his bed permanently because they had a little fun on the transport to her new colony. 

“Remember Roma’s fiancee when we landed on Mars?” Octavia said with a laugh in her voice as she buckled into the seat behind Bellamy.

“Shut up, O,” Bellamy said, without looking at his sister. 

He turned back to Miller. “We’ll just have to keep the passengers at arms length. We’re dangerously low on energy tabs. Moonshine might well still fly if her biomechanical elements die from starvation, but she won’t be Moonshine anymore, she’ll just be a tin can with an engine. We need those credits.” 

Octavia chuckled. “Yeah. Credits. All I know is that I’ve got Atom and Raven gets to see her boy toy on Dropship Station every so often, but when’s the last time you had someone in your bed, Bell? Miller? I know Murphy’s ready to go, no questions asked, whatever’s clever. New passengers mean new possibilities, hmm?”

“I don’t think we’ll have that problem this time. These passengers are squints from Alpha Station. Scientists. I don’t think they are going to be trouble. They’ll probably stay in their quarters the whole time, afraid of how small the ship is, sure the walls are too thin to survive space travel, squinked out by the critters in the walls.” He laughed to himself, remembering the last time soft Alpha Station University graduates used Moonshine to get back to their arkship.

Miller grunted and flipped the thruster switches to start takeoff. “Brainiacs, huh?” He rolled his eyes. “You know they always expect us to take care of them. Too delicate for life on a freighter, if you ask me.”

“They aren’t going to have a life on a freighter, certainly not on Moonshine,” Bellamy scoffed. “We’ll pick them up on Dropship Station and then drop them off at their destination, wherever it is. And the extra credits are just for the detour. They are still paying us for the transport. Remember the energy tabs, Miller. Moonshine needs to be fed.”

Miller shot him a sour look. He complained about passengers because he was a cranky pessimist who doubted the whole human race, but he loved Moonshine as much as Bellamy did and would do anything for her. He was on board.

Raven Reyes, their mechanic, dropped into the last open seat, fastening the straps around her. She loved take off, and Bellamy wasn’t surprised she’d finished in the hold and made it to her seat. If she could, she always watched it from the helm, while the rest of the crew buckled in down in the common area. She was not only a great mechanic but also a great pilot, although she was better with the smaller shuttles. There wasn’t much Raven Reyes couldn’t do, and it was only one of the reason he was glad she was part of his crew.

When you lived in a biomechanical ship, hurtling through the void, you had take on multiple roles. Pilot, mechanic, smuggler, shooter. You never knew what skill space was going to demand of you. Another reason why the elite from the arkships were too soft for life on a freighter. They just hired someone to take care of things. But what were you supposed to do, stalled out in the middle of an empty sector, with a pirate ship heading your way? Hire someone to make it better? Bellamy barked out a short harsh laugh at the thought of buying his way out of life’s troubles. Arkers, no matter the empire they came from, were soft and spoiled and weak. “Let’s head to Dropship Station, Miller. You always look for problems.”

“You don’t even know where there destination is, do you?” Miller asked. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“We’re going to Dropship Station?” Raven asked, a smile in her voice.

“Yes, Raven, you’ll get to see your loverboy.” Bellamy turned to look at her, just because he loved to see her smile. It lit any space she was in up like a sun, and she didn’t get to smile nearly enough. He valued her as a mechanic, but he valued her as a friend even more. If the prospect of seeing Finn Collins made her smile like that, it was just that much more incentive for Bellamy to take the extra credits for the detour. 

“Three weeks earlier than we’d planned!” Raven said, excited. “Thank you Bellamy.”

He scowled at her so she wouldn’t know he liked to see her happy, then nodded to Miller. “Take us out, man.”


	2. Runaways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ever since whispers of treason started following her father's memory, Clarke has wanted to get away from the Arcadian Empire. Her best friend Wells finds passage on a not very legal ship. 
> 
> Everything about the biomech ship intrigues her, including its captain, Bellamy Blake.

Clarke Griffin sat at a cantina on Dropship station. They’d been stuck on this hub station for weeks now. She’d had fun, a lot more fun than she’d expected to. She’d even met someone she thought maybe could be a someone someday, but there was an itch behind her eyeballs, a need to disappear before the Arcadian Empire thought to wonder why she hadn’t come home. Arkers always went back to the luxury and privilege of their arks, they just didn’t run off to live with the spacers on their rock colonies or tin can ships. It didn’t matter if she wanted nothing to do with Arcadian, or arkships, or the “best future of the human race.” She didn’t believe the Arcadian stories any more, and she was pretty sure if they found her, they’d drag her home, and say that it was for her own good.

Through the viewing window, Clarke watched the shuttles and transports come and go, her fingers tapping on the table. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She and Wells were supposed to have been long gone, slipped off into the diaspora, hidden on some dinky colony somewhere. Invisible. But their contacts had vanished, and so had their transport. She could always pull up her credits and book a flight, she could even hire a small ship of her own, but that would leave a trail. So they stayed here on this hub station, and waited, hoping not to be noticed.

Clarke sighed, and looked over at her companions. They were harmless. Students on vacation from Alpha Station University. They were a lot more fun than most of the students she’d known. They seemed to not take much seriously. In a way, they served as a kind of camouflage. No one would think a group of students drinking too much at a hub station was anything seditious. They probably wouldn’t notice them at all except to roll their eyes at them.

“Dude!” Monty said, reaching out and grabbing Jasper’s jacket, dragging him to the window. “Look at that!”

“What?” Jasper said, the goggles he wore, like some sort of chemist’s badge, perched on top of his head. “What am I looking at? That funny looking ship? What the hell is that thing?”

“It’s a biomech!” Monty whispered loudly and dramatically. 

“Really?” Jasper gasped and pressed his nose up against the window. “That’s a biomech? That’s not what I expected. It looks so… dumpy.”

“It’s the first one I’ve seen in real life,” Monty whispered, his voice going soft.

Clarke was too curious to let it stand. She came to stand by the boys. “What is it? What are you talking about?”

Monty looked back at her and then nodded out the window with his chin. “You see that ship? Kind of gray and lumpy looking?”

“It looks kind of like a piece of chewing gum.”

“Yeah, it’s still experimental. You know about the eco-system on Ceres, out at Far Reach Station? Well they discovered this silicon based stuff that can live in space. It gives off energy as a waste product and heals itself. Someone decided to try to bioengineer it onto mechanicals and well… look. I wonder if it’s improved ship functions? It’s supposed to be great for life support, like makes a healthier environment for living, but I don’t think they’ve really figured out a way to keep it self sustaining. If they managed to really make it work the way I imagine, it would make travel out of the solar system much more manageable. You wouldn’t have to carry fuel you could—”

“Monty,” Jasper warned, with a strange look on his face. “Clarke doesn’t want to hear about all that tech stuff. Maybe we should go get a drink.” 

“Hear about what tech stuff?” Wells asked as he came up behind Clarke. They all turned to him and he caught Clarke’s eye and nodded very slightly, before turning to look out the window. “What are we looking at?”

“That Biomech ship,” Monty said, the eager tone back in his voice. 

“Biomech, huh? That is cool tech stuff. I wonder why there aren’t more Biomech ships out there.”

“Hm,” Monty hummed. “They’re hard to keep alive. I don’t think it’s supposed to be that gray color. And maybe people are uncomfortable with the idea that they are flying around inside of some alien life form.”

“Are you saying that ship is alive?” Clarke asked. She’d heard about biomech technology, but had never really thought of it as anything more than a new kind of synth leather, just a fake skin or something.

“Theoretically…”

Clarke turned back to the window, more interested now, but Wells took her elbow and drew her away from the two boys and their conversation about spaceships. 

“Clarke.” He leaned down and spoke quietly into her ear. “We’ve got a ride. Undocumented.”

Her heart started beating rapidly. “How?” Hope. She had hope of freedom.

“Your mom pulled on some of her connections.”

She didn’t know how Wells had been able to contact her mom. She had been afraid to speak to her, knowing that any communication between Abby and Clarke would be monitored by Arcadian. Her mother, was a council member, and had been closely watched ever since the whispers of her father’s treason started. Clarke fought down the familiar tears.

She knew Jake Griffin. He would never have blown up those O2 scrubbers on Mars Colony, but he’d never get the chance to defend himself now, because the whole dome had exploded, killing everyone on the oxygen farm, including Jake. And the truth was, Clarke knew too much, and that was why she could not go back to Ark. She took a deep breath and screwed on her courage. “Great,” she said to Wells. “Where’s our ship?”

“I don’t know.” When Clarke raised her eyebrows at him, he continued, “But I have a name. I need to go to talk to the captain.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re far too recognizable. We don’t want to have any connection between you and the contacts.”

“I’m recognizable? You’re the son of the Arcadian Chancellor.”

He scoffed. “I’m one of his many sons, and the uninteresting one at that. Not distinguished enough at anything for anyone to pay attention to. Maybe if your parents weren’t so stubborn as to only have one kid, instead of contributing to repopulation, you’d be less recognizable, too. Or maybe you should start wearing a hat or something. Hide that hair, for god sake. It’s like you’re waving a banner. ‘Here I am, I’m the Arcadian Princess.’”

“Shut up,” Clarke said without heat and punched him on the shoulder. It was true, she’d never had any siblings, and in a solar system where they were repopulating humanity it was weird. And she was stupidly proud of her golden hair. Hair that color was rare and she loved it. Embarrassed by her own vanity, she reached up and braided it back. Maybe she didn’t have any brothers and he had too many, but she’d claimed him as her family. “Fine, go meet your contact. Get our flight. I’ll be at the bar.”

Wells snorted and smirked. “I bet you will be. Going to say good bye to your boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said, but the blush on her cheeks told a different story. 

Wells shrugged. “Just remember, tell him you’re going back to Arcadian, okay?”

“Yes, I know. Can’t have anyone know the truth,” Clarke grumbled.

“We might be back through someday, you never know.” Wells relented. “Meet you at the bar,” he said and then slipped out of the cantina.

When she turned back to Monty and Jasper to tell them she was heading for a drink, they were both gone. She rolled her eyes and decided the guy who was totally not her boyfriend would be more fun to spend the last of her hub station time with.

***

And he was. 

Finn was tending the bar when she came to tell him that she was leaving. She saw the sadness in his eyes as he tucked a loose strand of hair back behind her ears. She felt the same connection with him as she had when he showed her the hidden corners of the station, little alcoves where they could watch the stars and space traffic, talk about their hopes and dreams, and spend the hours wrapped in each others’ arms. There was something both simple and eternal about those nights. She was going to miss that, miss what it might have grown into.

“I’m sure I’ll be back through all the time. Dropship is the hub for this sector,” she said.

He nodded and gave her a huge smile. “I’d like that.” He pulled her off to the side of the bar and pressed her up against a storage unit. “I’ll wait for you,” he whispered, as he pulled back momentarily and looked deeply into her eyes.

“Just how many girlfriends are you ‘waiting for’, Finn Collins?” a waspish voice snapped.

Finn jumped back from Clarke, who blinked and stared at the beautiful woman standing in front of them, her hands on her hips and her dark eyes sparking with rage.

“Raven!” Finn said. “You’re home early. I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“Clearly,” Raven said, her mouth pressed into a thin line. The hurt in her eyes, clear.

“Home?” Clarke murmured. “Wait, you never said you had a girlfriend.” Clarke rolled her eyes and straightened her clothing that he’d rucked up. “Of course you do. Cute bartender like you on a hub station, girls coming through all the time.” Clarke pushed away from the storage unit and turned to the woman. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ve only known him a few weeks and now I’m leaving. It was just a thing. I’m sorry,” she said again. She felt she should, both for her part in the girl’s heart being broken and for her being stuck with the guy who would break it. She shook her head in disgust. She felt naive.

“Clarke, wait…” Finn started.

“Finn, I don’t know what you think I’m going to do here. I was saying goodbye to you anyway. Don’t wait for me. I won’t wait for you.”

Raven snorted. “I was waiting for him. I’ve been waiting for every time I could come through, for three years. He said he was waiting for me. We grew up together—“ her voice broke, just a little bit and Clarke had the sudden urge to comfort the woman. 

She stepped up and wrapped her arms around her in a hug. “You deserve better,” Clarke whispered into her ear. “Okay?” She felt Raven melt into her hug, and the nod. 

“Damn right I do,” Raven muttered in Clarke’s ear. “I’m awesome.” Clarke felt her straighten her spine and step back from the hug. She turned to Finn. Clarke turned to the door. There was Wells, waving at her, gesturing for her to come over. She’d never been so happy to see him.

“Good luck,” Clarke shot over her shoulder. She wasn’t sure if she was wishing good luck to Raven or Finn. It didn’t really matter. She’d probably never see either of them again.

“So do we have a ride?” Clarke asked Wells.

Wells nodded. I’ve paid up on our rooms for the rest of the month and scheduled a transport back to Ark at the end of the month.”

“What? We can’t go back to Ark. I can’t—“ she started.

“It’s to cover our tracks,” Wells interrupted. “I don’t want them to know when exactly we left Dropship station. “I met with the captain and his crew is already loading our baggage. Come on. We need to go now. It’s the shift change. We can board without being seen.”

Clarke shook her head but followed Wells. She knew they were trying to disappear, but it was just so strange to be in the process— to be disappearing.

They walked through silent halls before they came upon the tall figure in spacer synth-leathers leaning up against the wall. 

“Captain Blake,” Wells said. “This is Clarke Griffin.”

He turned and a jolt went through her at his dark gaze.

His eyes raked her, from the floor up, his lips thinning to a tight line of disapproval. “Undocumented, huh?” he said. His voice was deep and quiet. Suddenly she was having trouble breathing. 

“They should have told you when they commissioned you,” Wells said, his face serious.

The man rolled his eyes and tossed a bundle at Wells. “You don’t look like you belong on a freighter. Cover up.” The bundle was a long duster coat with a hood.

Clarke looked at Wells, with his neat pressed woven hemp shirt. She always said he looked too proper. She tried to get him into the synth leather spacer clothes, like the captain wore, but he had refused. Maybe now he’d recognize that only arkers could afford real organics for their clothes. She smirked a little at being proved right as he pulled the hood up over his head.

Then the captain threw something at her, too. “You too, blondie,” he said. “You can’t sneak around the port looking like princess goldilocks. Maybe you should dye it. Or shave it.” 

Clarke glared at him. He’d given her a loose gray hat. She pulled it on and tucked her hair into the saggy thing.

“Better?” she looked at the captain as if it were a challenge.

“Better, Captain,” he said, correcting her, leaning towards her like he was imparting a secret.

She smiled tightly. “Is that better, Captain?”

He blinked once and then started walking. “Keep your heads down and follow me.”

She was relieved to make it through the port and dock areas without anyone seeming to notice them at all. He hustled them through the gangway and the portal and she never even heard the name of the ship. He slid the portal shut, and palmed his communicator. “How we doing, Miller?”

Clarke heard the voice on the other end. “Uh, Bellamy, we have a problem. Get to the common area.”

“Stay here,” Bellamy said to them, and headed down the hall, but Clarke had no intention of staying anywhere, if there was a problem with the ship she was taking, so she followed. He entered the common room and looked back at her, pissed as she stepped in the door right behind him.

“Monty!” Clarke said. “Jasper! What are you guys doing here?” Wells grabbed her arm and pulled her back for no reason other than he seemed to be used to trying to pull her back before she got into trouble again. 

Jasper looked at them, a wide smile on his face. “It’s the biomech ship,” he said and he gestured at the walls and ceiling. For the first time she actually looked. The light was a warm creamy color and seemed to emanate from slowly swirling, almost pulsating wall panels, and a green mossy ceiling grew down to meet the light panels. “Isn’t it cool?”

“We’re on the biomech ship?” she looked at Wells. “You didn’t say the transport you got us was biomech.”

Bellamy snorted. “Is that a problem?” He was clearly even more pissed off.

She blinked at him. “No. Not at all. It’s just we were talking about it. We saw it from the view window. It was unusual.”

“I didn’t think it was an issue. We needed transport. They have a freighter and are taking passengers and are—“ Wells broke off and looked at Monty and Jasper. They’d been their companions on the hub station, but they didn’t really know them. They just gathered together out of shared circumstances and pints of spacer brew.

“None of that matters anyway,” Monty broke in.

“Excuse me?” Bellamy turned around and looked at Monty, looking ready to kill. He didn’t exactly reach for the blaster at his hip, but suddenly Clarke was made aware that he was carrying one. All of a sudden she was wondering if signing on undocumented to this random freighter was such a good idea. No one would know where they were, if the captain turned out to be untrustworthy. They could be floated right out into space, and no one would ever know what had happened to them.

Monty just went on, though. He never noticed the menace behind Bellamy’s words, or the way his fingers twitched. “All of this.. It doesn’t matter. Your ship is dying.”

Bellamy’s jaw dropped open. Clarke watched his face fill with blood. Now she wasn’t worried about her own safety, but about Monty. He was a defenseless kid, and she felt a duty to him. She pushed past the captain and stood in front of Monty, blocking him with her body.

“What are you talking about, Monty? I’m sure his ship is fine.”

“No, it’s not,” Monty said earnestly, and actually pushed Clarke out of the way, stepping up to Captain Blake. “I’m sorry, I have no real life experience with biomech ships, but this was my area of study at Alpha. This ship is starving. I don’t know how you managed to keep it going as long as you did, but it’s not supposed to be gray.”

“What?” Bellamy grabbed Monty’s arms. Clarke was no longer worried about him shooting Monty. Now she was worried he might throttle the boy. 

“Let him go,” Clarke threatened.

“Back off, princess. This is my ship. None of you belong here without my express permission. Now, you… Monty, tell me what you’re saying about my ship. We have energy pellets. She’s not starving.”

Clarke blinked and stood back. He wasn’t angry, he was worried.

Monty shook his head. “No. Energy pellets aren’t enough. That’s like expecting humans to survive on vitamin shots. Biomech needs to be maintained through a carefully balanced ecosystem. No matter how they try, human energy sources just don’t do it. She’s supposed to be bright, even glowing, not this mushy, dead gray. I don’t know how you kept her alive this long. Eventually, all the biomech ships die.”

Clarke watched Captain Blake’s red face drain of color. “She’s dying?”

Clarke felt a pang to her gut, as if she could feel the captain’s grief.

Monty shook his head quickly. “No. You can save her. You need to get back to Far Reach. Back to her native quadrant.You can find what she needs there.”

“I don’t know what she needs,” Bellamy said, stricken.

Jasper stood forward then. “We do. Monty does. Take us with you. Take us to Far Reach, and we’ll care for your biomech and help you find the energy it needs.”

“Why would you do that? Why would you even want to go out to Far Reach. There’s almost nothing out there but darkness.”

‘That’s not true,” said Monty. “There’s void life form. There’s the biomech lab.”

Jasper pulled Monty back. “I’ll tell you the truth. We got into trouble on Alpha. We didn’t just end up on Dropship Station for vacation. It’s a terrible place for vacation. We’re kind of on the run.” His eyes flashed with fire and excitement. 

“I’m not taking in a couple of runaways.”

“We’re not runaways,” Jasper said. “We’’re potential valuable crew members. You need our services.”

“Whether that’s true or not, do you know how long it will take to get to Far Reach? I can’t just go off on adventures with a bunch of delinquents. I have paying passengers with destinations.”

Clarke made a split second decisions. “We’ll go with you to Far Reach,” she said.

“Clarke, no,” Wells said. “We’re expected on Io.”

“I don’t want to be found, Wells. Even by our contacts. I want to disappear, and the best way to do it is to not do what is expected of us. Take us all to Far Reach. That’s our new destination.”

“You’re paying me to go to Far Reach because this kid says my ship is dying and needs some kind of ecosystem from there?” Bellamy looked at her with suspicion. “Why?”

Clarke was surprised by the increase in her heart rate. “Because I want to? Because I’ve never been?” She looked around. For the first time, she realized they weren’t the only people in the common room. Aside from the broad shouldered, intense captain, there was a small woman, just as intense, staring at her with narrowed, blue eyes, and an arsenal of weapons strapped to her body. 

And there was a man, scowling, his hair cropped tight, almost military, his arms folded across his chest, watching them all, the students from Alpha. “I told you passengers were more trouble than they’re worth, Bellamy,” he said.

“Miller…” Bellamy warned the man.

“Like I told you, captain,” Clarke made up her mind, she honestly didn’t know why, “we need to go undocumented. I’d prefer to not be on Io. Sorry Wells. All those connections know that we’re going there. I’m trying to get away from the Arcadian Empire, not just play hide and seek with them. Sooner or later, someone would find us. But Far Reach? That’s a good place to hide. That’s frontier. It’s nowhere near Arcadian’s quadrant.”

Bellamy— Captain Blake narrowed his lips. “I don’t buy it. Far Reach is dangerous and Io’s a good a place to disappear as any. A little hair dye, a fake marriage, you’re someone else. What else are you selling?”

Clarke chewed on her lip. The lighting panel swirled and she walked over to it. Bellamy followed close behind her, not trusting her. She raised one finger to the lighting panel and ran her finger down it. The swirls followed her finger. 

Bellamy, watching her, shivered. Clarke blinked and laid her hand flat on the panel. 

“It’s warm,” she said. “And soft.”

“Waste product. Light and heat,” Bellamy said and his voice was deeper than before. 

Clarke nodded. “She’s alive,” she said. “I don’t want her to die.” Bellamy’s eyes widened. 

“Look,” Wells said, jumping on board, because he was always her back up and rolled with whatever terrible plan she came up with in the moment, even flying out to the out end of the solar system on a whim. “Clarke’s a doctor. That’s got to be worth something. I know a freighter’s life is hard and the fatality rate is high. She can offer medical care.”

“I thought she was offering passenger fees.”

“We’re sweetening the pot,” Clarke said. “Wells is an astrogator. He can get you anywhere in the solar system.”

Bellamy scowled. “I’m the navigator.” 

“I’m sure you’re a great navigator, but an astrogator has studied the physics of space and time—“

“Clarke, he doesn’t need an astrogator on a freighter,” Wells said, then turned to the captain. “We booked passage on your ship with the expectation that we would tell you our destination when we met you.” Wells looked at Clarke and she nodded gravely. “Our destination is Far Reach.”

Bellamy took a step back, his eyes flicking back and forth between Clarke and Wells, Monty and Jasper, and then on to his crew members, who looked back at him, blinking.

He nodded and reached a hand out to shake on it. “Far Reach it is,” he said, and it sounded as if he didn’t quite believe that strangers would care enough about his ship to ever offer to go to the far end of the solar system just to get the right energy tech, but he’d take it anyway if it kept his ship alive. Clarke didn’t blame him. 

Life in space was a brutal existence. And yet, it was all humanity had had for the last hundred years, with no planetary haven in sight. Clarke drew her brows down into a frown. She didn’t think it should be so cut throat. She didn’t think they should have to expect betrayal from every person they ever met. 

She had no idea why she wanted to trust these people, not Bellamy and his crew or Monty and Jasper, their drinking buddies, but she did.

“For all four of us. Me, Wells, Monty and Jasper. Four passengers to Far Reach.”

Everyone turned and blinked at her. “What?” Wells said. “What are you doing?”

“You don’t have to pay for us. We’re offering services,” Monty said. 

“Exactly how many credits do you have, Princess?” Captain Blake asked doubtfully.

“I’ve been withdrawing my entitlement bit by bit since my dad—“ Clarke pinched her lips together. “I have the credits and they’re untraceable. I’m betting no one else on this ship has that. I’m all in, here. I intend to disappear. That means this ship has to disappear, and these two guys have already been linked to us on Dropship Station. If they disappear at the same time, we’ll be tracked, unless they go undocumented too. Let’s all go to Far Reach, find out what your ship needs, and at the end of it, we can come out of it with new identities and go to Io, or split off to four different quadrants or whatever we want to do.”

“Agreed,” Captain Blake said, looking at her with suspicion. Clarke say the barest glimmer of hope in his eyes. She couldn’t deny that she felt the same hope. Her heart was beating so fast. They were actually doing this.

Captain Blake turned to his crew. “Is everybody else back yet?”

“No way. Conjugal time, remember?” the woman said.

“Dammit, Octavia,” He rolled his eyes. “That’s no good. I want us out of here as soon as possible. We just came to pick up our energy tablets and move on, right? Not even any time to take on passengers from Alpha. Call everyone in. They’ll just have to keep it in their pants. This was an unscheduled stop anyway.”

“Do you have any gear you need?” Octavia asked Monty and Jasper. “If you’re going to be living with us, you’re going to need your stuff. I can get when I go to pick up the energy tabs.”

Miller flicked his communicator on, and spoke one phrase, “report, all,” and that was it. 

“I’ll show you to your quarters.” The captain turned to her and with a tight expression and a small shake of his head, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it, said, “I guess you’re one of mine for the foreseeable future, princess.”

Clarke shot him a small, satisfied grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly can't believe how much harder it is to write this scifi space AU than other things. I'm not sure if it's because it's so scifi or because it's a longer fic, but I struggled hard on this.


	3. Just a Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke may have hired out his ship, but Bellamy was still captain. It annoyed him how she kept acting like she was in charge. 
> 
> Lots about her annoyed him. How bossy she was. That many of her ideas were actually really good. That she seemed to be bonding with his ship. It was his ship, dammit.

When humanity first thought about travel in outer space, they imagined flying between stars, the great galaxies whizzing by, as the bold starships raced into the future.

Real space travel was slow and boring and monotonous. Faster than light travel was and had always been a fantasy as unbelievable as omnipotent gods throwing thunderbolts, and immortality. It was just something that humans had invented to make them feel less insignificant in the vast expanses of the universe. Bellamy kept an eye on his console, the most important instrument right now being the proximity monitor. It was a bitch to fix a hole in The Moonshine’s skin when it got ripped up, and if he had to be honest, it healed more slowly each time it happened. The thought caused Bellamy’s stomach to twist uncomfortably. He was sure that Monty’s assessment of his ship’s health was correct and it scared the hell out of him. 

The Moonshine was headed for the outer colonies, and that meant as they got farther from Earth, there were fewer space stations, ships and colonies. But with less space traffic, it was harder to stay awake. 

The portal to the helm slid open and Clarke came through. 

“You’re late,” Bellamy, barked without looking up, his eyes focused on the sensors and readings. There was nothing interesting, but it was when you stopped paying attention that you found something interesting, and in outer space, something interesting was very often something bad.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bellamy saw Clarke come up short, jerking to a stop.

“Last time I checked, I was the one paying for this flight, Captain,” she said. He gritted his teeth, because she alway made the title sound like a mockery. “That makes me your boss, so you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Bellamy blinked, slowly before turning away from the sensors to look at her. She held two trays and an expression of fury.

“I’m the captain on this ship, princess. That makes me the boss. Not you. Get it through your spoiled head.”

Clarke slammed the trays down on the center console and stood back up, her fists on her hips. 

“Don’t you dare—“ she started before the lights of the wall panels started to flicker.

Clarke and Bellamy both looked up in alarm. He had gotten really nervous about every little flicker or change in air flow lately, ever since Monty had told him Moonshine was dying, and there was nothing he could do but take her out to Far Reach as fast as he could. His hands clutched, helplessly at the arms of his seat.

He glared at Clarke as if it were her fault but Clarke had already turned away from him and walked to the wall panel.

“Where are you going?” he snapped.

Clarke turned her head to glare at him. “Shh,” she said to him-- to him-- then turned back to the light panel and began patting it. “It’s okay, baby. I won’t let the mean man yell anymore.”

Bellamy watched Clarke murmur sweet nothings to his ship and felt something twist in his gut. She pressed her cheek to the warm light, and he knew what it would feel like. The panels were just bout the same temperature as the human body, and inside the translucent skin, it was basically a viscous liquid, so it was soft to the touch, and gave under pressure. Clarke’s hands ran up and down the panel, and her lips smiled as she whispered. The feeling in his gut spiked. It was jealousy. 

“Stop talking to my ship!” he snapped. 

She didn’t even look at him. “I will not. We’re friends,” she said quietly, to the ship. “It’s okay, he just has a bad temper sometimes. I think he’s worried.”

“She can’t hear you, Clarke,” he said quietly through gritted teeth. “She doesn’t have any ears.”

Clarke stood up then and turned to him. “She feels vibrations. And energy.”

“You’re supposed to be a doctor. What are you going on about with that mumbo jumbo energy crap.”

“I’ll have you know, Captain Blake, that it has been scientifically proven that all life forms have an aetheric body, and can transfer their aetheric energy to other life forms. The Moonshine feels me.”

Bellamy blinked and looked back at the sensors. Clarke slid into the copilot’s seat next to him. In this empty portion of space, he didn’t exactly need a copilot, but he needed someone with him to help keep an eye on the dash and to keep him awake. All the crew members and passengers were now taking shifts with the official pilots, just so everyone could take it easy. He had to admit he hadn’t had so much time off since… ever. It wasn’t that bad of a set up, even if it had been Clarke’s idea, when she realized the copilot didn’t need to have actual training for their easy journey. He snuck a glance at her, watching her console, nibbling on the snacks.

The truth was, he talked to The Moonshine all the time. He talked to her like she could understand him. He talked about his worries and his hopes, his friends and his memories. And he always felt as if she understood him. He never told anyone. It didn’t fit with anything else in his life or who he thought himself to be or how he survived and kept his friends and family alive, but he believed, deep down inside, that his ship was aware.

Clarke was picking through her tray to find morsels to eat when he finally turned back to her.

“Are you saying my ship has a soul?”

Clarke chuckled and popped a protein nugget in her mouth. “I said aetheric body. It’s about energy. You fly a ship, Captain, you know about energy. Maybe you’re getting low on energy. Eat your food.”

Bellamy pursed his lips and and ate his protein nuggets. The drink was something new. Some sort of brewed thing that gave him a jolt of energy. He wondered which of his passengers had come up with it. It was all about energy, wasn’t it? Feeding. Growing. Living.

“When my mother died, the light went right out of her,” Bellamy said, staring out into space. He hadn’t even meant to start speaking, the words just came out. That happened sometimes around Clarke. They weren’t always nice words that he let out, but sometimes, they were things that he’d been thinking about for a long time and had never spoken aloud.

She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t look at her. 

“I was there the moment her brain turned off. One minute, she was my mother, the next minute, she was an empty husk.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Clarke, relaxing into her seat, he eyes focused on the stars out in front of the ship. 

“Her light went out. You can call it energy, or aetheric body. It was her soul.”

He saw Clarke nod her head once. Silence filled the helm. Clarke and Bellamy sat next to each other. Watching the stars. Watching the sensors. Sipping at the drink. Not talking.

Bellamy was surprised at how right it felt. It made him a little uncomfortable how easy it was to have shared something so intimate, get silence back, and continue on. But something about her just made it okay, so he couldn’t get himself to worry about it. 

He was busy adjusting their trajectory around a bit of space debris when Clarke finally spoke. 

“I think you’re right.” 

He had his hands on the controls and his eyes on the debris, so he didn’t turn to her. He raised one eyebrow in a question.

“Your ship has a soul.”

Suddenly Bellamy had a knot in his throat. He swallowed heavily.

“She’s not alive like a fungus, or a plant. She’s alive.”

Clarke fell silent again, checking out the various instruments on her side of the helm. Bellamy finished piloting around the cloud of space junk, and set The Moonshine on auto again. He turned to Clarke finally. 

“You’re saying my ship is sentient.” 

Clarke shrugged. “I don’t know.” Her hand caressed the console. It wasn’t even a bio part of the ship, just plain metal. Bellamy wondered if she knew she was doing it. “I don’t know to what level she’s alive. Maybe she’s like an amoeba.”

“You don’t believe that,” he said, quietly. She was a woman of science. He was a man of engines and cargo. But ever since he’d stepped on board the Moonshine, he had felt like she was family, and there was nothing practical or scientific about it. 

“No, I don’t,” Clarke said, “but I don’t have any scientific evidence of it, just a feeling.”

“You feel my ship,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He knew she did. The thought made his stomach flutter and he didn’t like it at all. 

Clarke chewed her lip and nodded. 

Bellamy compressed his lips together as if that would keep him from admitting it. “I do, too,” he said.

They went back to silently watching the space they moved through. Clarke turned on some music. It was the popular kind from Arcadian Quadrant, fancy stringed Earth instruments and old fashioned drum beats. He didn’t even grumble about it. To be honest, he’d grown up with that kind of music on the factory station, even if they never got the new stuff. It made him think of his mom, before things got bad. 

“You know,” he said, not looking at her. He knew she turned to look at him, though. He could feel her attention. It made him straighten his spine. “We’re heading to Jupiter orbit to stock up on supplies. We don’t have enough rations to get all of us out to Far Reach, let alone to get back. And it’s all more expensive out there any way.” He shot a glance at Clarke. Her head was cocked in confusion. “There are a lot of farm colonies on Mneme. They’ve been terraforming that moon for a long time. Someone on Trigeda Colony owes me. We can get a good deal on supplies there.”

“Okay,” Clarke said, dismissively. “Why are you telling me this. Clearly we need to resupply. Are you asking for my permission?” Clarke snorted as if the thought was ridiculous.

Bellamy blinked at her. She’d just said she was his boss, even though it was his ship. If she didn’t think that, why in the world would she bother saying it? He shook his head in confusion. 

“I’m just saying, we can swing by Io. You can do your disappearing act there. You don’t have to make this mission yours. The next time we stop, we’ll be way out of the Arcadian Quadrant. It won’t be so easy to go home. It’s going to get a lot rougher. Life in the outer orbits is tough, princess.”

Clarke turned back to look out at the stars, but he didn’t get the feeling that she was actually seeing anything. Her shoulders were stiff and her chin jut out at a painful angle.

“You’re not getting rid of me, Blake,” Clarke spat out. “I paid to go to Far Reach, you’re taking me to Far Reach. If you want me gone, you’re going to have to float me.” He saw her gasp and the color drain from her face as if she realized he could actually do that, just take her money and float her out of the air lock. 

He felt his face heat up. “I’m not going to float you,” he hissed through gritted teeth. As if he would actually do something like that. They both knew that he was willing to fly undocumented, and smuggle illegal cargo, but it made him angry that she thought he was the kind of person who would kill her for her credits. And he didn’t know why he cared what she thought of him. “Fine. Come to Far Reach. I thought I’d give you a last chance to get off of this shit show of a dying garbage ship and go back to being a princess. You don’t want the out, then come. We’ll probably all die with The Moonshine before we get there, anyway. In case you thought this was going to be a luxury cruise.”

“Bellamy, you are a bastard.” Clarke glared at him, her eyes flashing like an electrical storm. 

“Yes,” he smirked. “I am. I’m Captain Bastard, princess. Get used to it.”

When Murphy came in for his shift as copilot, Clarke grabbed the trays with a clatter and stormed off without a word to Bellamy.

Murphy watched her go, laughing. “What the hell did you say to her, Bellamy?” he asked as they listened to her footsteps down the corridor.

“Sit down and shut up, Murphy. It’s time for your piloting lesson.” Murphy sat in the copilot seat snickering, but Bellamy didn’t think any of it was funny.


	4. Crash Seat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Moonshine gets hit. 
> 
> Clarke resists feeling things.

Clarke was still fuming over Captain Bastard Bellamy as she poured herself some of the booze Monty had distilled, and sat down at the crew table. He said he had to make moonshine in honor of the ship, but Clarke was pretty certain he and Jasper just liked to drink. 

Raven watched as Clarke settled in on the bench, cradling the harsh liquor between her hands. 

“Tough shift with the captain?” she asked, hiding a grin.

Clarke rolled her eyes at Raven. It had been touch and go when Raven got back to The Moonshine and realized that her boyfriend’s other girlfriend was their new passenger, but they had actually liked each other too much to hold a grudge. They bonded over the faithlessness of hub station bartenders and allowed that Finn had, at least, good taste in women. 

Clarke shook her head and leaned into Raven conspiratorially. “It might be partly my fault,” she whispered, so Wells on her other side wouldn’t hear her and scold her for antagonizing their captain. “I think I provoke him on purpose.” She grimaced and took a gulp of the booze. It was strong. She coughed and grimaced harder.

Raven clapped her on the back. “You don’t know why, huh?”

“In all fairness, he deserves it.”

“Oh, that he definitely does,” Raven said and laughed. “You should hear—“

The ship jolted hard. 

Clarke grabbed the edge of the table to keep from falling as the lights in the common room went totally out then flickered back on. Raven jumped up, on high alert. Jasper, Monty, Wells and Clarke stared in shock.

Raven ran for the door, stopping at the portal and pointed back at the four Arcadians still in the common room with a finger like a laser blaster. “Buckle up,” she ordered. “Stay out of the way.” She looked directly at Clarke and said, “if we need you, we’ll call for you. ”

Wells immediately headed for the crash seats. Monty saw him and followed. Jasper stood there, gawping.

“Why would they need you, Clarke?” 

Clarke gritted her teeth. “They’ll need me if someone gets hurt. Sit down, Jasper and fasten in.” He blinked and finally rushed over to the seat just as the ship jerked again. 

Clarke did not buckle up. She went over to the storage panels on the other side of the common room.

“Clarke!” Wells called. “What the hell are you doing? You need to be in the crash seats.”

Clarke shook her head. “The crew is not in crash seats. They’re working. I’m the doctor, and if something happens to one of them, I need a med kit. Can’t waste time looking for supplies.” Clarke opened container after container under the wavering light. “Where’s the freaking med kit?!”

“Third compartment down, second from the wall,” Wells answered, calmly. Clarke found it and took out the med kit, relieved, turning to sit down. “Hey!” Wells called from his seat. “Close those compartments. We don’t know how rough it’s going to be. Everything needs to be stowed. This isn’t an ark ship.”

“Right,” Clarke agreed and closed the compartments she had opened. She rushed over with her med kit and fell into the seat as the ship jolted again. She fumbled with the straps. The lights flickered again, then steadied and dimmed to a dull glow. They stared at each other in the low light as the ship threw them against the constraints of their straps, this way and that. Clarke’s heart was beating so fast she clutched at her chest as if she could stop it. Fear, excitement. And oddly, joy. 

“She was hit,” Clarke said, “But now Bellamy has her. He’s piloting her away from whatever it is.”

“How do you know?” Monty asked, her, staring at her.

“It felt different, didn’t it? The first was jarring, an accident. But now, it’s g forces. There’s a method to it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Monty nodded at her. “You’re right. It is different.” They watched a cup roll on the table, back and forth, around. “And the lights stopped flickering. They dimmed, but they’re steady. She’s saving energy in here and using it where she needs it.”

Clarke looked at him. “She can do that? Is it on purpose?”

Monty looked at her and shrugged.

“I am not comfortable with this,” Jasper muttered. “This never happens on Arcadia.”

“You’re the one that wanted to leave the ark ship and go on adventures,” Monty snapped, the tension breaking through his normally wry composure. “Arkships are practically planetoids with engines. Moonshine is not. This is what it means to depend on a tiny, fragile freighter for your very existence. It’s a tiny bubble in the void and could pop at any moment.”

“You are not helping, Monty!” Jasper cried. 

“There’s nothing we can do about it, Jasper,” Clarke said, her voice steady. “Calm down and trust The Moonshine, trust Bellamy, trust the crew. They know what they’re doing, okay?”

Clarke was relieved to feel the ship fall into a steady thrum, as if in agreement. The jerking calmed. 

When Bellamy’s voice came over the com, Clarke let the breath she had been holding out in a rush.

“We got caught in an uncharted debris field. The Moonshine took some damage. We’re going to stop for repairs.”

Clarke had the urge to free herself from the crash seat and go running to the helm. She didn’t know where the urge came from, except for maybe a desire to make sure everyone— make sure The Moonshine— was okay. She stayed where she was, gripping the seat straps. Wells unbuckled and moved around the common room, setting spilled plates and cups to rights, cleaning up messes. It wasn’t that bad. Spacers made it a habit to batten down everything, for just such occasions. Arkers never had to do that. 

Clarke watched Wells clean up. It was a good distraction from her urges. “I didn’t know that a ship could stop like that in outer space. I thought they always had to find an orbit or link up to a space station.”

“That’s only the arkships, Clarke, and it’s because they are just too big. Their momentum is too hard to slow. It’s like stopping a moon. But a small ship like this one? Quick to start and stop. It’s no problem. And it’s safer to do a space walk when the ship isn’t speeding through space. That’s why they use droids for repair on the arkships. Spacewalking is a dangerous job.”

Clarke grimaced. “They’re going on a spacewalk?” She’d heard of the dangers, knew of the fatality rates, seen the injuries in her medical texts. “Dammit.” Clarke finally unbuckled. 

“Where are you going, Clarke? They told us to stay here until we were called.”

Clarke looked at Wells. “If they’re going out on a space walk to fix the ship, I need to be there. In case they need me. I’m the doctor. It’s my job.”

“You’re a passenger, Clarke,” Wells said.

She looked at him. “I need to be there.” She had no other argument. Wells pressed his lips together and didn’t say anything else. Clarke turned to Monty and Jasper. “You two help him straighten up in here. Check to make sure everything is in order.”

Jasper unbuckled and gave her a salute. “Aye Aye Cap’n,” he said. Maybe he was just joking to control his nerves, but Clarke gave him a quelling glare anyway, then she turned on her heel and sped towards the helm, just short of running, like she really wanted to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's more to this chapter in Clarke's POV, but I also felt like this was the end of the scene, so I published it on its own. Sometimes shorter chapters are easier to both write and read. So here she is.


	5. Helping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Moonshine has been hit by space debris and her biomech skin has been damaged. Raven and Atom take a risky spacewalk to repair the ship, and Clarke and the Arcadians try to help.
> 
> (minor character death)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am, deep in sci fi territory. I know enough about science to speculate on how things could work. Caesium is a real thing. What I depict is not actually caesium. It's something related to caesium that they found in space. It could happen.
> 
> It's kind of cool trying to imagine how people would move around in space. We're assuming an artificial gravity. I have no idea how that would work, but it's a science fiction convention and I'm taking advantage of that. 
> 
> I am open to scientific corrections or speculations.

Clarke found them at the airlock. Raven and Atom were suiting up and Bellamy was checking their gear.

“Atom, you take the damage on the tail. It’s less severe and the biomech plaster should be all you need for the repair. If the damage is worse, you report.” Atom nodded and hefted a tank with a glowing mixture that looked rather like what filled the light panels. 

“I got the damage on the port side, Bellamy,” Raven said. Her face intent.

Bellamy turned to her. His jaw clenched. “You gotta check under the biomech skin, Rave. That was a bad hit we took. We can’t go on with a damaged substructure,” the muscle in his jaw jumped again. “Especially if the biomech skin is failing. The Moonshine could protect even a damaged metal ship from the void, but not if she’s dead. If the substructure is at all compromised, we’re dead along with the Moonshine.”

“You know me, Captain. I’m the best Zero-G mechanic in the quadrant. I got this.” She snapped on her helmet and led Atom to the airlock. The inner lock shut on them and Bellamy stepped over to a computer panel, working on the keys. With a start, he turned around.

“What are you doing here, Princess?” he said and his voice was too shocked to even be offensive.

“My damn job, Captain. They are risking their lives,” Clarke pointed at the two in the air lock, readying the outer hatch. “And I am here in case anything happens.”

Bellamy’s jaw twitched again. She knew he was worried and she wasn’t going to stand down because it felt like the only thing she could do to help. Her stomach flipped. She held onto the med kit.

On the other side of the airlock, the portal to space was opening. His shoulders tensed as Raven and Atom left the safety of the ship. He nodded without looking at her.

She stepped back, and watched as the view screen lit up, showing Raven and Atom from the exterior. Clarke was fascinated. She’d never actually seen a space walk. It wasn’t something anyone she knew ever concerned themselves with on Arcadian. It was always one of those things those “other” people did. People like Bellamy Blake and his crew. It had always seemed like grunt work. Not that she’d ever thought once about what it was they did. She only ever spent time thinking about the things that she and her people did. Going to school, finding a profession, taking tests, supporting the Arcadian Empire in their rule of the quadrant and some day the universe.

Clarke stood back and watched Bellamy Blake as he directed his crew in outer space, and she watched his crew as they deftly maneuvered through the void to repair the ship upon which their lives depended.

Clarke wasn’t sure when she started crying. She only realized when she snapped an edge off of the plastic med kit because of how tightly she had been holding it, cutting her palm in the process. She was glad Bellamy Blake had been too busy with his work and hadn’t seen the tears tracking down her face. She wiped the tears off of her face and sucked on the flesh under her thumb where she’d cut it. For some reason, she felt like her entire life up until The Moonshine had been false. That the Arcadian Empire had been built on lies and deceptions, but what was here? This was real. 

“What’s going on?” Monty whispered in her ear. He’d come up behind her.

She startled and turned around. His eyes were trained on the screen, watching them with glittering eyes. 

“Raven and Atom are on a space walk to fix the tears in the skin. Apparently there’s some damage to the substructure of the ship that is hiding under the biomech.” Clarke lowered her voice and leaned in to Monty. “He’s afraid that if the biomech dies, the ship is gone, and with her, all of us.”

Monty’s eyes grew wide. “He thinks she’s going to die.”

“He believes you, Monty.” Their voices were quiet, but Clarke had the feeling that Bellamy was listening to them. 

Monty walked over to Bellamy. Clarke tried to grab him, to hold him back, she was afraid of what the temperamental captain might do to the gentle biomech engineer. She missed the grab and instead went back to hugging the med kit.

“Check the electrolyte readings,” Monty said as he reached Bellamy’s shoulder.

Clarke braced for a blow up. She knew how tense the captain was. 

Bellamy simply glanced over his shoulder at the slight man. “Electrolytes? I thought that was just for light production and temperature control.”

Monty shook his head. “If the biomech skin senses a flaw in the substructure, it will try to heal it, whether it is biological or mechanical in nature. It doesn’t know that it’s not part of its body.”

Bellamy nodded, without thanks and tapped on the console. 

He stood up straight, his entire body language changing. “Thirty meters to port and twelve meters forward, Raven. That’s the flaw. I’m guessing it’s a gash about two meters long. Diagonal it looks like.”

“You want me to abandon my search here? I’ve only plastered about half of the skin damage and I haven’t double checked. I should double check. I don’t want to miss anything.”

Clarke couldn’t see her face in the spacesuit, but she could hear her confusion.

“Affirmative. Monty told me to check the electrolytes in the biomech readings. There’s a spike where I indicated.”

“Huh!” Raven exclaimed. Clarke saw her on the screen as she released the magnetic clamp on her boots and began jetting the few meters to the other spot. “Electrolytes. Of course. Good call, Monty.”

It was still a few more minutes before Raven said, “I got it!” Clarke could see Raven on the screen, spidering along the side of the ship, reaching under the thick gray skin, pulling it back as if it were a rubber mat. Her voice was triumphant.

“Is that going to hurt her?” Clarke asked, not even meaning to say it out loud.

“Raven will be fine,” Bellamy said. “She needs to get under this skin to fix the substructure.”

Monty shook his head. “She means Moonshine. “ Bellamy looked at Monty, this time he was shocked. He looked at Clarke. Clarke nodded. 

“Oh,” Bellamy said. “Yes, it hurts her. It’s like surgery. You’re a doctor, you understand surgery. She’ll need to heal. Raven will oxy-weld the metal and then she’ll use the biomech plaster under the skin and in the tears to help the skin repair itself.” Bellamy was looking at Clarke when Wells came up behind her.

“Are all your people planning on coming in here to get involved in our spacewalk? What is this, Arcadian tourist central?”

“Monty helped you,” Clarke snapped. “And I’m the doctor. Stop treating us like dilettantes out for a joy ride.”

Bellamy turned back to his monitor. She knew he wouldn’t give her an apology.

“We’re going to have to go at half speed for a while, until she heals.” Bellamy glanced at Monty. “She’s been healing more and more slowly. This journey just got longer.”

Monty was busy nodding. “I can work on that,” he said.

“What?”

“Let me figure it out. I think I can improve her healing, at least for a little, just give me some time with your sensors and your biomech tanks.”

Bellamy turned away from his sensors. “Really?”

“I think so. Maybe just temporarily. But it might help.”

“Thanks,” Bellamy said, and Clarke’s stomach flipped at his sincerity. She reached out a hand to pat the light panels on the wall. As if giving comfort. 

“Uhm,” Wells said. “About that uncharted debris field. It looks like a ship exploded. A pretty large one, too. We need to report that, or every ship coming through this sector is in danger.”

Bellamy stiffened and turned back to his sensor. “If we report it, the authorities will know where we are and we are no longer off the grid. We’re too close to Drop Ship station and our destination can only be Jupiter orbit. Your disappearance will be blown. And we will be wanted for smuggling undocumented passengers. No can do. Any ships that come through here will have to be on their own.”

“You’re willing to let them risk the kind of damage we just got? Or worse? That’s wrong. You are risking the lives of every person on every ship that comes through here.”

“What part of undocumented do you not understand? The part where you will just be taken home to Arcadian but my crew and I will be thrown in jail, our assets seized and claimed by the complainants, mainly Arcadian Empire? That’s right, we will be prisoners for life in hard labor stations mining asteroids, and Moonshine will be scavenged for parts. Not happening, prince charming.”

Wells shook his head and stepped up to Bellamy.

“Wells,” Clarke tried to call him back. It didn’t work.

“Give me access to your nav and engineering systems and I can create a small time/space worm cataract. We bounce the debris field coordinates through that, and they won’t be able to trace it back to us.”

Bellamy turned around and fully faced Wells, his hands limp at his side. “You can do that? Create a worm hole? What the fuck?”

“A cataract. Smaller than a worm hole. Just big enough for a com signal. It was my dissertation project. You can fix a signal so it has no personal signatures, right?”

Bellamy snorted. “Of course I can. I’m a smuggler, aren’t I?”

“I knew you were a smuggler,” Clarke couldn’t help teasing. “Pirate captain Bellamy.” 

He rolled his eyes at her and turned back to Wells. “Damn squints. Turning out to be useful. If you can do what you say, yeah, I’ll report the debris field. And we’ll talk more about this time/space cataract, what the fuck?” He said again, like he couldn’t believe it. Honestly, Clarke still didn’t quite understand it. It was something for navigators and philosophers and all those people trying to find a way to reach the rest of the planets in the universe when they were so firmly stuck here in Sol System. She was a doctor. She was just trying to keep people alive in the void. That was a big enough task for her.

“Got it Bellamy!” Raven called on the cracking comm link. Bellamy turned back to his screen. “Substructure damage all done. Just give me some time to plaster these wounds. They’re pretty extensive over here.”

“Great job, Raven. I’ll check the electrolytes again, just to make sure. Atom, you okay? Hows the repair on the tail?”

“Pretty much done, Captain.”

“Good. Finish up and head over to Raven to help her with the rest of the repair.”

Clarke was relieved. The tension in Bellamy’s shoulders relaxed, just a little bit. She eyed him as he watched his crew finish up the repairs. The ship would be okay. They would all be okay.

Atom was half way over to Raven, his jets shooting out intermittently to direct his movement when Bellamy’s sensor alarm went off. Almost simultaneously, a scream shot through the comm unit.

“No!” Clarke yelled, the word tearing from her mouth. His suit and helmet was suddenly marked with holes. Atom floated, still heading in the direction he had been going, but limp now, and spinning in his path.

“Raven get back here!” Bellamy commanded as the alarms continued to blare. “More debris is heading our way, faster than before. We’ve got to take evasive actions. Miller,” he continued, now talking to the pilot. “Get the engines up.”

“The hell I will,” came back Raven’s tense reply as she pushed off from the side of the Moonshine to grab ahold of Atom’s safety line and reel him in. Easily, as if she were playing some sort of Old Earth sports game, Raven snagged Atom’s suit and jetted her way directly back to the airlock bay. Bellamy closed the outer airlock door.

“Now Miller!” Bellamy said. 

Clarke could feel the engines spring to life, the tension in the ship under her feet. She wanted to be away. Clarke was on alert, it was her turn to do her job. They waited as the airlock pressurized. Raven floated him onto a stretcher that folded down out of the bay wall. This was part of the spacer life, part of spacewalking, they were always ready for the danger. It was agonizing, watching the gravity engage. Raven’s feet connected with the floor and she began working on unhooking Atom’s helmet as Bellamy set about opening the inner airlock door.

As soon as Raven got Atom’s suit un latched and his helmet off, Atom jerked and began screaming, ear bleeding loud, raw.

Clarke pounded on the door. “Open it! Open it now!” she commanded. 

“Dammit,” Bellamy muttered and threw it open. Clarke was all but sucked in through the door, but managed to keep on her feet as the differing air pressures stabilized between the two rooms. She fell into Raven but paid no mind as she was already opening the med kit. Raven had her hands on Clarke’s shoulders, holding her upright as Clarke turned to Atom. 

“Get the rest of this suit off,” she said, as she finally gained her balance. Raven unlatched it and peeled the thing off. 

Underneath the suit and helmet, Atom’s skin was red and raw, weeping puss and bubbling with a green ichor.

“Fuck, what is it?” Clarke said horrified, “Everybody back. Don’t touch him.” He continued to scream with a high keening.

Then Monty was there. “That’s caesic acid,” he said. “It eats organic matter. Oxygen makes it burn. It must have been what made that other ship explode.”

“What?!” Bellamy shouted. “We’ve got to float him! We can’t risk that exploding. The whole ship is at stake.”

“Wait,” Monty said and then grabbed Raven’s biomech plaster tank from where it had been discarded on the floor of the airlock. “Use this. Cover the wounds with it.”

Clarke didn’t ask any further questions. She grabbed the tank and pointed the nozzle at Atom’s wounds while Raven helped her turn it on. The glowing liquid spread out like something between a liquid and a foam. Monty kept explaining as Clarke and Raven covered the wounds.

“It’s an anaerobic life form. Oxygen makes the acid burn but the plaster seals the atmosphere away. It should stop the burning almost instantly.”

“Can I touch him when he’s covered with the biomech plaster?”

“Yes, it’s a newtonian solid. Just be careful not to scrape it and wear space gloves to be safe.”

“Raven, I need you to turn him,” Clarke said to the woman, still in her full space suit. 

“Get Atom’s suit, too,” Monty said. “It must have acid on it. We can’t let it expand. Raven looks okay.”

Bellamy grabbed Atom’s dropped tank and started spraying the torn space suit.

Atom’s screams died down to a whimper. “I can’t…” he said. “I can’t. 

The burns covered one side of his body from the top of his head down to his thighs and stretching across his whole back. His skin burned so badly that she had already seen how it had fused, even before she had coated it with the biomech plaster. His eyes were hidden behind the glowing plaster, but she had already seen them, white and lifeless.

She looked up at Bellamy and caught his anguished glance. 

She pressed her lips together and shook her head once, tight.

Bellamy closed his eyes for one second. He clicked a link on his com. “Octavia, port airlock bay. Now.”

“You sure?” he asked her. She nodded her head. 

“Atom, can you hear me?” he whimpered. “Can you hold on? Octavia is coming.” She could hear footsteps pounding at speed down the hall. Clarke rifled through the med kit, wishing she had taken the time to familiarize herself with it before she’d needed to. She’d been remiss. 

Maybe she had forgotten, truly, how dangerous it was out here, because this ship and her crew and her captain had made her feel so comfortable. 

Then Octavia was falling to her knees beside him. She reached for him and then pulled her hands up in the air. “Can I touch him? Will it hurt him?”

The burn was now covered with the biomech plaster, and only his uninjured skin was exposed, but his breath was thready and his heart rate was dropping dangerously. 

Clarke nodded. “He’s in a great deal of pain.” Clarke had found the syringe she needed. She didn’t like to think why a freighter ship would have a dose of euthanasia medicine ready to go. But then, here she was needing it.

She took his whole hand, and his fingers closed desperately around hers.

“Octavia,” he said, his voice barely audible, “I love you…stay with me…”

Octavia’s eyes widened and welled up with tears and she looked up at Clarke, panic stricken. Clarke could only nod, urging her to give him whatever comfort she could. 

“I love you too, Atom. I will be here as long as you need me.”

He gasped and his back arched off of the stretcher.

“Okay,” Clarke said, moving into position, “I’m going to help you.” She found herself humming an old earth lullaby, softly as she worked, sliding the hypodermic into his skin and pressing the plunger. Humming as Octavia stroked his hand, until he took his last breath and his tortured writhing stopped.


	6. His Weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spacers don't get attached.
> 
> It's a rule. Spacers fly in and out of other people's lives, leaving them behind. Spacers risk death on a daily basis, from the void, from accident, from pirates, from inevitable tech failures, from bad luck.
> 
> Spacers don't get attached.
> 
> But here is Clarke, soft and unprepared for the spacer's life. 
> 
> And here is Bellamy, wanting something he's not allowed to have.

“Octavia,” Bellamy said, grabbing her arm as she packed up her gear. They were heading down to Trigeda colony surface to restock. Ever since Atom died, Bellamy had worried about her. It was like she didn’t care about anything. “You don’t have to come with us.” 

She slipped a blaster into her thigh holster. Whenever she went colony side, she always went packing. They could be lawless places. She herself had been kidnapped on Trigeda colony once, but it had been a political misunderstanding and actually provided them a much needed alliance on one of the outer colonies, so it was hard to tell her to stay in the ship, even if he thought it would be better for her. He couldn’t shake the terror he had felt when he thought she was dead.

He was a spacer. He used whatever weapon was at hand. “I get it if you want to stay here. Because of Atom.” 

Her jade green eyes were as hard as stone when she turned to him. “You want me to mourn Atom?” He didn’t know how she managed to look down her nose at him when she was half a foot shorter than him, but she managed. She blinked slowly. “We’re spacers, Bellamy,” she said, and her voice was low, almost threatening. A warning. “We don’t get attached to people. Remember?”

Bellamy pursed his lips at her. He hated it when she threw his words back at her. He’d warned her, before she got involved with Atom. It was his bad luck that they heard footsteps echoing down the corridor just as her words faded away. And he knew who it would be. Fuck.

“Ready!” Clarke said, brightly, dressed in spacer synth leathers and a hood. Her raspy voice sending a shiver to his gut. Fuck. 

“The hell, princess. You’re not coming.” 

“The hell, captain,” she said back, her voice amused and a smirk on her face. “Yes, I am. This colony has an experimental pharmacopeia. There’s medicine here I need, and I need to be the one who goes. In fact, Monty’s coming too. He thinks he might be able to find some proteins and silica out in their rock gardens to help Moonshine.”

Bellamy narrowed his eyes at her. She rocked a little on the balls of her feet, pleased. He knew the Moonshine was his weakness. And she knew it too. The glint in her eye made him want to kiss the smirk right off of her. He cleared his throat ready to lay into her and demand she stay onboard.

“I’m her guard, Bellamy,” Octavia chirped up. She’d strapped a blade to her back. It was completely anachronistic and pointless, considering the array of high tech weapons she carried, laser, bullets, sonic, but she was adamant that she’d be allowed to carry the short sword. Especially on the outer colonies. They were weird places, often lawless, they even made up their own languages so they’d have an advantage over spacers. She liked to carry a visible reminder to some of the brutes on colony that she was not easy pickings, despite her slight stature.

He grumbled. She was very often right when it came to matters of offense and defense. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. He was surrounded by strong, stubborn women. Dammit. He didn’t like it at all. Not one bit. He had one last ditch chance to keep Clarke safe. Make her afraid.

“That ship you booked passage on?” he said. “It docked at Arkadia and you weren’t on it. They’ve sent out a quadrant wide bulletin for you.”

Clarke wide blue eyes got wider. Bellamy’s heart stuttered. “I’m wanted by the Arkadian Empire? For what?”

He shook his head. He wanted to reach for her hand and pull her close.

Dammit. 

“Not wanted,” he said, and his voice was husky. “But there is a bounty for you. You might not have experience with bounty hunters, Clarke, but I know the kind of bad shit they can get into.” They’d had a crew member, Mbege, who had run afoul of bounty hunters. Mbege had been killed and his body taken in for payment, and Moonshine had almost been taken for trying to protect him. Only Miller’s fast thinking and faster piloting had enabled them to escape. The key to getting away from bounty hunters was to just give them what they wanted. Their mistake had been trying to fight. They wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“A bounty on my head? Like dead or alive?” Clarke’s face drained of blood. 

Shit.

“No,” he said, trying to comfort her. “No dead or alive. Just alive. They want you back on Arkadia. And your boyfriend, Wells, too.”

“Stop calling him that,” she said, and the humor was back in her voice. Dammit. Why hadn’t he just scared her with the bounty thing? It was clearly a threat that could have worked. He was weak. As her cheeks pinked up with a blush, he thought he needed to find a pretty girl on Trigeda Colony, and get this out of his system. Miller had been right. Passengers were always more trouble than they were worth.

“You’re going to get recognized, princess. And then the bounty hunters will have you. It won’t be skin off our backs, they’ll just take you back to Arkadia for their reward. They don’t care about smugglers who don’t have rewards, they’ll let us off with maybe a bribe.” The thought of smugglers taking her made his fingers twitch for his blaster. 

Clarke glared at him. “I won’t be.” She pulled the hood off of her head and dark red hair tumbled out. 

“What the hell did you do?!” It was a mess and it personally offended him. 

Clarke snorted. “You told me on Dropship Station I should dye it, so I did.”

“It’s ridiculous. You look like some sort of out-station speedy nut.”

“Exactly! What I don’t look like is a princess of The Arkadian Empire.” 

Bellamy wanted to keep arguing but Monty came down the corridor. He was wearing a hood too, and holding out a pair of goggles. “I got them, Clarke. Jasper wasn’t pleased. He made me promise to get some hops so we could brew some beer for the journey to the outer orbits.”

“Awesome,” Clarke said and grabbed the goggles, shoving them onto her head and adjusting them.

Octavia laughed. “I’ve got something to add to your disguise.” She pulled out a tube of something from one of her many pockets. She uncapped it and held up the black makeup she used to make her eyes into a terrifying mask. “Here, let me put it on you.”

Bellamy watched as his sister painted Clarke’s lips with black. He couldn’t stop watching, what with the way she opened her mouth and held her face out for Octavia’s ministrations.

Fuck. Dammit. 

Clarke smacked her lips together and Octavia fluffed her crazy hair and stood back. “That will definitely do.”

“What do you think, captain Bellamy,” Clarke said, grinning. The goggles and hair and makeup made her look like a completely different person than the fresh faced beauty he let on his ship a few weeks ago. Why did it make him like her even more? He hated her. Fuck.

“I hope that shit washes out,” he growled, sneering at himself for saying it. Dammit.

Clarke looked taken aback. “I thought you hated my hair.” He couldn’t even tell what she was thinking under that rat’s nest of hair and those thick goggles. 

“You scare the shit out of me,” he said, and for the first time since she walked down this corridor, he knew he was telling the truth. Dammit. “They will have no trouble thinking you’re an out-station speedy nut looking for drugs.”

She smiled with her black lips and it made him want to push her up against the ship wall suck the color off. 

“Then my job here is successful.”

He stared at her, a little too long. He saw her blink slowly behind the goggles. He forced himself to speak, slowly and too deep. “I suppose the rest of the squint team will be coming along? Wells? Jasper?”

She shook her head. “No,” he thought she was staring at him but he couldn’t be sure behind those goggles. “Wells and Raven are working on something with that time/space cataract. And Jasper is… well, he’s making more moonshine, I think.”

“Dammit,” he said. “I guess this is our landing party? Me, Miller and Murphy for the food stock. You, Octavia and Monty for the meds and ship needs?”

Clarke’s black lips curved into the softest smile and Bellamy’s heart stopped. She cocked her head and looked at him through her goggles. “That’s our team,” she said and her voice was so warm. He wanted to touch her. What the hell? Why was she soft? Spacers weren't soft.

He turned away from her roughly and spoke into the com. “Miller. Prepare us for descent and landing. Mission is a go.” He headed down the corridor to the helm, without a dismissal. Clarke followed, right on his heels. 

As if he could ever dismiss her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for ending abruptly. This is it. Be assured they get together. I had to abandon this so I can turn it into an original novel. I needed the freedom.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any questions or ideas or speculations or suggestions for this science fiction world, I am open to discussion. I have not worked out the whole story and am kind of writing my way in to the world.
> 
> Comments welcome or come to my tumblr talk to me there http://rosymamacita.tumblr.com/


End file.
